Maybe Kathleen Willey is a woman abused. Or maybe she's just another of the many attractive ladies who prowl Washington's margins of power, seeking to trade on their sexual attraction to get jobs, access, or travel.

After-all, sexual enticement is the flip-side of sexual harassment.

Willey may even be a lying publicity seeker - ironically, rather like the man who claims to be her `victim,' Bill Clinton.

Female columnists and the Lesbian Left have their knickers in a twist over Willey's gushy come-on's to Clinton after their alleged sexual skirmish. Could the idol of American women really be a despicable cad who tried to exact instant sexual payment for promising to help damsel in distress Willey? We'll probably never know.

But I do know this, and have for many years: Bill Clinton is a man without morals or character or truth. And my view of Clinton has nothing to do with his tawdry sex life, about which I care nothing.

First, as a US Army veteran, it makes me sick to watch wartime draft-dodger Clinton snapping ersatz military salutes - and almost unleashing the US armed forces to kill thousands of Iraqi civilians in order to divert attention from his sex and money scan dals. Last month, the Clinton Administration manufactured hysteria by claiming Saddam was about to destroy the world. This week, the Willey scandal left Saddam's totally eclipsed and forgotten - yet the world remains undestroyed.

Second, I had my own early insight into Clinton's true character. He trailed me at Georgetown University by two years. Girls I knew there related to me with disgust how a priapic Clinton groped them with all the finesse of an Ozark hog farmer. More important, I heard a steady stream of stories about Clinton from his classmates that showed a man of ruthless ambition and relentless opportunism, - acceptable in a politician - but coupled to low integrity, frequent dishonesty, and a lack of loyalty to friends and supporters.

Over ensuing years, I've watched the Clinton Administration sink ever deeper into a swamp of illegal fund raising, intimidation or payoffs of witnesses, influence peddling, character assassination, chicanery and Arkansas gutter politics writ large. I 've watched Clinton welcome a procession of crooks, con-men, shytser lawyers, Asian influence buyers, and Hollywood bagmen, making his administration this century's most corrupt presidency.

The real scandal is a presidency for sale, not sexual escapades, and it will be seen as the legacy of the Clinton Administration.

Past presidents of my memory - and I recall as far back as that most noble American, Dwight Eisenhower - had faults and committed peccadillos. Yet they all - including the disgraced Nixon - shared dignity and gravitas. They were respected - even when hated, like Nixon - as both leaders and as symbols of their nation.

That so many Americans today shrug off such sordid behavior of their president and his aides is testimony of just how much the Clintons and their Hollywood handlers have debased and cheapened the once august office of the president and, with it, the dign ity of the United States. The same media barons that destroyed Richard Nixon have packaged and successfully marketed Bill Clinton as a woman's personal presidential product.

Hollywood's latest political propaganda film, `Primary Colors,' besides seeking to alter Clinton's smarmy image by blurring him with John Travolta in the public mind, promotes the notion - particularly to females - that it doesn't matter if the pre sident is a sleaze, liar and mountebank - as long as he's attractive, hip, and `sensitive.'

Another reason Clinton remains so amazingly popular is because this Hollywood-produced, made -for- TV presidency is the nation's favorite sit-com, the with-it, warts and all, we're all human, `Bill and Hillary Show.,' To me, however, it's more like th at old radio program, `Fibber McGee and Molly.'

Copyright: Eric Margolis, 1998. Published by Sound Vision with permission.